In this section, we will cover a RESTful API that uses HTTP request methods to GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE data.
RESTful API is an application program interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE data. In the previous sections, we have learned about python, flask, and mongoDB. We will use the knowledge we acquire to develop a RESTful API using python flask and mongoDB. Every application that has a CRUD(Create, Read, Update, Delete) operation has an API to create data, to get data, to update data, or to delete data from the database.
The browser can handle only get request. Therefore, we have to have a tool that can help us to handle all request methods(GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).
Examples of API
Postman is a very popular tool when it comes to API development. So, if you like to do this section you need to download postman. An alternative of Postman is Insomnia.
An API endpoint is a URL that can help to retrieve, create, update, or delete a resource. The structure looks like this: Example: https://api.twitter.com/1.1/lists/members.json Returns the members of the specified list. Private list members will only be shown if the authenticated user owns the specified list. The name of the company name followed by the version followed by the purpose of the API. The methods: HTTP methods & URLs
The API uses the following HTTP methods for object manipulation:
GET Used for object retrieval
POST Used for object creation and object actions
PUT Used for object update
DELETE Used for object deletion Let us build an API that collects information about 30DaysOfPython students. We will collect the name, country, city, date of birth, skills and bio.
To implement this API, we will use:
In this step, let us use dummy data and return it as a json. To return it as json, will use json module and Response module.
# let's import the flask
from flask import Flask, Response
import json
app = Flask(__name__)
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students', methods = ['GET'])
def students ():
student_list = [
{
'name':'Tech',
'country':'Finland',
'city':'Helsinki',
'skills':['HTML', 'CSS','JavaScript','Python']
},
{
'name':'David',
'country':'UK',
'city':'London',
'skills':['Python','MongoDB']
},
{
'name':'John',
'country':'Sweden',
'city':'Stockholm',
'skills':['Java','C#']
}
]
return Response(json.dumps(student_list), mimetype='application/json')
if __name__ == '__main__':
# for deployment
# to make it work for both production and development
port = int(os.environ.get("PORT", 5000))
app.run(debug=True, host='0.0.0.0', port=port) When you request the http://localhost:5000/api/v1.0/students url on the browser you will get this:
When you request the http://localhost:5000/api/v1.0/students url on the browser you will get this:
Instead of displaying dummy data let us connect the Flask application with MongoDB and get data from MongoDB database.
# let's import the flask
from flask import Flask, Response
import json
import pymongo
app = Flask(__name__)
#
MONGODB_URI='mongodb+srv://asabeneh:your_password@30daysofpython-twxkr.mongodb.net/test?retryWrites=true&w=majority'
client = pymongo.MongoClient(MONGODB_URI)
db = client['thirty_days_of_python'] # accessing the database
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students', methods = ['GET'])
def students ():
return Response(json.dumps(student), mimetype='application/json')
if __name__ == '__main__':
# for deployment
# to make it work for both production and development
port = int(os.environ.get("PORT", 5000))
app.run(debug=True, host='0.0.0.0', port=port) By connecting the flask, we can fetch student collection data from the thirty_days_of_python database.
[
{
"_id": {
"$oid": "5df68a21f106fe2d315bbc8b"
},
"name": "Asabeneh",
"country": "Finland",
"city": "Helsinki",
"age": 38
},
{
"_id": {
"$oid": "5df68a23f106fe2d315bbc8c"
},
"name": "David",
"country": "UK",
"city": "London",
"age": 34
},
{
"_id": {
"$oid": "5df68a23f106fe2d315bbc8e"
},
"name": "Sami",
"country": "Finland",
"city": "Helsinki",
"age": 25
}
] We can access a single document using an ID, let’s access Asabeneh using his ID. http://localhost:5000/api/v1.0/students/5df68a21f106fe2d315bbc8b
# let's import the flask
from flask import Flask, Response
import json
from bson.objectid import ObjectId
import json
from bson.json_util import dumps
import pymongo
app = Flask(__name__)
#
MONGODB_URI='mongodb+srv://asabeneh:your_password@30daysofpython-twxkr.mongodb.net/test?retryWrites=true&w=majority'
client = pymongo.MongoClient(MONGODB_URI)
db = client['thirty_days_of_python'] # accessing the database
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students', methods = ['GET'])
def students ():
return Response(json.dumps(student), mimetype='application/json')
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students/<id>', methods = ['GET'])
def single_student (id):
student = db.students.find({'_id':ObjectId(id)})
return Response(dumps(student), mimetype='application/json')
if __name__ == '__main__':
# for deployment
# to make it work for both production and development
port = int(os.environ.get("PORT", 5000))
app.run(debug=True, host='0.0.0.0', port=port) [
{
"_id": {
"$oid": "5df68a21f106fe2d315bbc8b"
},
"name": "Asabeneh",
"country": "Finland",
"city": "Helsinki",
"age": 38
}
] We use the POST request method to create data
# let's import the flask
from flask import Flask, Response
import json
from bson.objectid import ObjectId
import json
from bson.json_util import dumps
import pymongo
from datetime import datetime
app = Flask(__name__)
#
MONGODB_URI='mongodb+srv://asabeneh:your_password@30daysofpython-twxkr.mongodb.net/test?retryWrites=true&w=majority'
client = pymongo.MongoClient(MONGODB_URI)
db = client['thirty_days_of_python'] # accessing the database
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students', methods = ['GET'])
def students ():
return Response(json.dumps(student), mimetype='application/json')
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students/<id>', methods = ['GET'])
def single_student (id):
student = db.students.find({'_id':ObjectId(id)})
return Response(dumps(student), mimetype='application/json')
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students', methods = ['POST'])
def create_student ():
name = request.form['name']
country = request.form['country']
city = request.form['city']
skills = request.form['skills'].split(', ')
bio = request.form['bio']
birthyear = request.form['birthyear']
created_at = datetime.now()
student = {
'name': name,
'country': country,
'city': city,
'birthyear': birthyear,
'skills': skills,
'bio': bio,
'created_at': created_at
}
db.students.insert_one(student)
return ;
def update_student (id):
if __name__ == '__main__':
# for deployment
# to make it work for both production and development
port = int(os.environ.get("PORT", 5000))
app.run(debug=True, host='0.0.0.0', port=port) # let's import the flask
from flask import Flask, Response
import json
from bson.objectid import ObjectId
import json
from bson.json_util import dumps
import pymongo
from datetime import datetime
app = Flask(__name__)
#
MONGODB_URI='mongodb+srv://tech:your_password@30daysofpython-twxkr.mongodb.net/test?retryWrites=true&w=majority'
client = pymongo.MongoClient(MONGODB_URI)
db = client['thirty_days_of_python'] # accessing the database
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students', methods = ['GET'])
def students ():
return Response(json.dumps(student), mimetype='application/json')
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students/<id>', methods = ['GET'])
def single_student (id):
student = db.students.find({'_id':ObjectId(id)})
return Response(dumps(student), mimetype='application/json')
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students', methods = ['POST'])
def create_student ():
name = request.form['name']
country = request.form['country']
city = request.form['city']
skills = request.form['skills'].split(', ')
bio = request.form['bio']
birthyear = request.form['birthyear']
created_at = datetime.now()
student = {
'name': name,
'country': country,
'city': city,
'birthyear': birthyear,
'skills': skills,
'bio': bio,
'created_at': created_at
}
db.students.insert_one(student)
return
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students/<id>', methods = ['PUT']) # this decorator create the home route
def update_student (id):
query = {"_id":ObjectId(id)}
name = request.form['name']
country = request.form['country']
city = request.form['city']
skills = request.form['skills'].split(', ')
bio = request.form['bio']
birthyear = request.form['birthyear']
created_at = datetime.now()
student = {
'name': name,
'country': country,
'city': city,
'birthyear': birthyear,
'skills': skills,
'bio': bio,
'created_at': created_at
}
db.students.update_one(query, student)
# return Response(dumps({"result":"a new student has been created"}), mimetype='application/json')
return
def update_student (id):
if __name__ == '__main__':
# for deployment
# to make it work for both production and development
port = int(os.environ.get("PORT", 5000))
app.run(debug=True, host='0.0.0.0', port=port) # let's import the flask
from flask import Flask, Response
import json
from bson.objectid import ObjectId
import json
from bson.json_util import dumps
import pymongo
from datetime import datetime
app = Flask(__name__)
#
MONGODB_URI='mongodb+srv://tech:your_password@30daysofpython-twxkr.mongodb.net/test?retryWrites=true&w=majority'
client = pymongo.MongoClient(MONGODB_URI)
db = client['thirty_days_of_python'] # accessing the database
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students', methods = ['GET'])
def students ():
return Response(json.dumps(student), mimetype='application/json')
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students/<id>', methods = ['GET'])
def single_student (id):
student = db.students.find({'_id':ObjectId(id)})
return Response(dumps(student), mimetype='application/json')
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students', methods = ['POST'])
def create_student ():
name = request.form['name']
country = request.form['country']
city = request.form['city']
skills = request.form['skills'].split(', ')
bio = request.form['bio']
birthyear = request.form['birthyear']
created_at = datetime.now()
student = {
'name': name,
'country': country,
'city': city,
'birthyear': birthyear,
'skills': skills,
'bio': bio,
'created_at': created_at
}
db.students.insert_one(student)
return
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students/<id>', methods = ['PUT']) # this decorator create the home route
def update_student (id):
query = {"_id":ObjectId(id)}
name = request.form['name']
country = request.form['country']
city = request.form['city']
skills = request.form['skills'].split(', ')
bio = request.form['bio']
birthyear = request.form['birthyear']
created_at = datetime.now()
student = {
'name': name,
'country': country,
'city': city,
'birthyear': birthyear,
'skills': skills,
'bio': bio,
'created_at': created_at
}
db.students.update_one(query, student)
# return Response(dumps({"result":"a new student has been created"}), mimetype='application/json')
return
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students/<id>', methods = ['PUT']) # this decorator create the home route
def update_student (id):
query = {"_id":ObjectId(id)}
name = request.form['name']
country = request.form['country']
city = request.form['city']
skills = request.form['skills'].split(', ')
bio = request.form['bio']
birthyear = request.form['birthyear']
created_at = datetime.now()
student = {
'name': name,
'country': country,
'city': city,
'birthyear': birthyear,
'skills': skills,
'bio': bio,
'created_at': created_at
}
db.students.update_one(query, student)
# return Response(dumps({"result":"a new student has been created"}), mimetype='application/json')
return ;
@app.route('/api/v1.0/students/<id>', methods = ['DELETE'])
def delete_student (id):
db.students.delete_one({"_id":ObjectId(id)})
return
if __name__ == '__main__':
# for deployment
# to make it work for both production and development
port = int(os.environ.get("PORT", 5000))
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